Jail Beds

One man was stabbed and two others were also injured at the county jail here after a group of Anglo inmates refused to "pay rent" to Latinos for the use of their own jail beds, Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies said Thursday. The six-minute fight among 18 to 30 inmates erupted at 6:40 p.m. Wednesday, sending one man to Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital with minor chest wounds from a jail-made knife, deputies said.

On a barren stretch of road on the edge of Irvine, a tasteful brown sign topped with a whimsical orange bicycle announces that a long-anticipated addition to the city is finally underway: the thousands of elegant new homes around the perimeter of the city's planned Great Park. The park itself will also soon grow, now that a plan to build 688 acres has been approved. And a long-awaited high school nearby is expected to open in 2016. Just down the road, another long-stalled project is also finally underway - the addition of hundreds of jail beds to a county lockup once so rustic it was known as "The Farm.

Despite pleas to spend more of the windfall on health care, the Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to use most of the $912 million Orange County will receive from the national tobacco settlement to build more jail beds and reduce debts.

Concerned about possible federal intervention into the operation of Los Angeles County's system of jails, the Board of Supervisors agreed Tuesday to take a significant step toward replacing the Men's Central Jail and renovating other facilities to reduce crowding and increase mental-health services for prisoners. The five-member board voted unanimously to accept a report from consultants who outlined five options. All included tearing down and replacing the Men's Central Jail and reconfiguring other existing facilities.

Sheriff Brad Gates on Thursday asked the county Board of Supervisors to provide 600 more emergency jail beds by year's end in order to comply with a federal court order to control overcrowding at the central men's jail in Santa Ana. "We have reached the proverbial bottom line," Gates said in a letter to the board. "Under the current conditions, it will be difficult to continue the safe and humane operation of the county jail and meet the mandates of the court."

Increasingly concerned by growing financial woes, the County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday postponed action on a proposal to open 216 badly needed beds in the county's East Mesa jail. The action was at least a temporary rebuff to Supervisor Susan Golding, who had proposed diverting more than $400,000 earmarked for courtroom furniture to hire 36 new deputy sheriffs needed to fully open the medium security jail.

You might call them itinerant inmates. Prisoners from North Carolina are serving time in Oklahoma. Colorado has sent some of its inmates to Minnesota. Virginia sent inmates to Texas. Nearly a dozen other states are comparison shopping, looking for the least expensive way to feed, house and clothe inmates in out-of-state lockups. Welcome to the overcrowded U.S. prison system, where inmates are serving time in whatever state has room for them.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block and Supervisor Gloria Molina engaged in a verbal tug of war over control of the Sheriff's Department budget Tuesday as Block announced that he will begin taking steps to close three County Jail facilities.

Mayoral candidate Peter Navarro Monday accused rival Susan Golding of inflating the number of jail beds in San Diego's correctional system, but the two-term county supervisor said that Navarro has botched his calculations and "doesn't understand the criminal justice system."

In an effort to ease overcrowding in San Diego County's jails, supervisors Tuesday allocated $1.3 million to build space for 268 new jail beds and to free up 100 more by expanding programs that provide early release for certain inmates. The board voted 4-0, with Supervisor Susan Golding absent, to spend the money for the beds, which were approved in concept June 24.

Following through on his promises, Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) says he has no plans to take up court-ordered legislation proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown to reduce prison crowding. Brown's office on Friday gave legislative leaders proposed language to increase state spending on private prison beds and jail beds by $450 million over the next two years, increase early release credits and expand parole programs for medically frail and elderly inmates. The governor had said he did not support most of the measures but was providing them only to comply with federal court orders to reduce prison crowding.

Jail-issued mattresses and blankets designed to prevent suicides have failed to meet their safety goals, as several Los Angeles County inmates have been able to fashion nooses from their bedding. In one instance last year, an inmate was found in his cell in the sitting position, hanging from a makeshift noose tied to the top of a bunk bed. The noose in the April 2009 suicide was made from a strip of fabric torn from a mattress cover that had been designed to guard against suicides, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

A man left paralyzed below the chest after he fell from the top of a jail bunk bed when a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy used a stun gun on him sued the Sheriff's Department on Tuesday, alleging that his civil rights had been violated. According to the federal lawsuit, Blake Dupree, 22, said he was standing on his bunk about four to seven feet above the concrete jail floor with his hands raised in a defensive posture when he was stunned with a Taser, which delivers a 50,000-volt shock.

The proposed push to attack Los Angeles gang crime seems straightforward enough: increase the police presence, broaden gang injunctions, start issuing "stay away" orders for hot spots and target the city's top 10 havoc-wreaking gangs. But even as the plans are being drawn up, there are significant questions about whether the police personnel, jail beds and gang intervention programs exist to back up the effort, prompted by a 14% increase in gang-related crime.

Mario Moreno should still have been behind bars the night he climbed into the passenger seat of a stolen car with two fellow gang members. He was carrying a rifle, some cartridges and, in his jacket pocket, a bag of marijuana. "Let's go do this," the car's driver recalled Moreno saying as they headed into the turf of a rival black gang. They drove by a liquor store at 89th Street and Central Avenue in South Los Angeles. Two older black men were standing outside.

Despite the boost in funding for Los Angeles County jails over the next three years, inmates will still be freed after serving just half their sentences, Sheriff Lee Baca announced Monday. Baca reported in a letter to the Board of Supervisors that the increase would allow him to keep inmates in jail longer, but that by June 2007 they still would serve only 40% to 50% of their sentences.

Despite the boost in funding for Los Angeles County jails over the next three years, inmates will still be freed after serving just half their sentences, Sheriff Lee Baca announced Monday. Baca reported in a letter to the Board of Supervisors that the increase would allow him to keep inmates in jail longer, but that by June 2007 they still would serve only 40% to 50% of their sentences.

More than $420,000 earmarked for courtroom furniture would be redirected to make 216 critically needed jail beds available under a proposal offered Tuesday by County Supervisor Susan Golding. Golding's plan, dismissed as an inadequate election year ploy by her rivals in the San Diego mayor's race, would leave insufficient money for jury seating, counsel tables and bookcases in eight new "temporary" courtrooms scheduled to open downtown May 15.

In a move intended as a first step toward ending the early release of inmates, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to give the Sheriff's Department $24.4 million more a year to reopen jail beds. Sheriff's officials said the money would enable them to reopen 1,778 beds by September and ease overcrowding. But they said it fell far short of what was needed to end the practice of releasing inmates before they completed their court-ordered sentences.

In a bid to end the early release of jail inmates, Los Angeles County's top fiscal officer on Thursday called for an extra $24 million for the Sheriff's Department -- far less than jail administrators contend is needed. Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen recommended in a letter to county supervisors the reopening of nearly 1,800 jail beds to keep inmates behind bars longer.